CHRISTOPHER KULENDRAN THOMAS

CHRISTOPHER KULENDRAN THOMAS

Christopher Kulendran Thomas is an artist who works through collaboration and/or exploitation to manipulate the processes through which art is distributed. His ongoing enterprise 'When Platitudes Become Form' takes as its materials some of the cultural consequences of 2009’s genocidal violence in Sri Lanka and the consequent economic liberalisation that has followed. Artworks from the island’s resultant ‘peacetime’ contemporary art scene are purchased and reconfigured or reframed by Thomas for international circulation. Incorporating these original artworks into his own compositions, Thomas exploits the gap between what's considered contemporary in two different art markets and the gap between his family's own origins and his current context.